Tag Archives: government

In Africa south of the Sahara, the despots know how to remain in power: arrest anyone who washes videos of the protests in Tunisia and Egypt; rig the elections: or if you lose, refuse to give up the office of “President for Life.”

In Zimbabwe, several people, students, trade unionists, and political activists gathered to watch videos of the protests going on in Africa north of the Sahara were arrested by President Mugabe’s police. The meeting was illegal because apparently the videos might have motivated the participants to overthrow the legal government of Zimbabwe (in other words, no body was gonna get rid of Mugabe like they got rid of the tyrants in Tunisia and Egypt). A law professor at the University of Zimbabwe who was arrested with his students alleged he was tortured.

In Uganda, the ruler for 25 years, President Museveni, won another five year term. How does he do it? Buy votes, establish personal patronage networks, and make sure you reward the military officers, cabinet members, and ministers in your government so that will not kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. In other words, keep enough people happy and they won’t see you as a tyrant but as a benefactor.

If all else fails, do as the president of the Ivory Coast in West Africa is doing: if you loose the presidential election, simply refuse to give up the presidency.

The dudes in North Africa could take a few lessons from those south of the Sahara.

You know how I know we senior citizens rule America? Washington Post columnist Robert J. Samuelson says so in his column of February 21. Right in the title, he says: “Who Rules America?” and then right in the title, he gives the answer: “AARP.”

According to him, the AARP, with it 40 million members, has taken over the government. Now he doesn’t say this in so many words. No, his words are “The great question haunting Washington’s budget debate is whether our elected politicians will take back government from AARP…”

Well, sir, I’m one of those 40 Million members and this is the first I heard that AARP had taken government from who? I suppose the taxpayers, of which I am one.

Anyway, his beef with us senior citizens is we will not allow the politicians to touch Medicare and Social Security. No, sir, we AARP frustrates “needed Social Security and Medicare changes.”

AARP is so powerful it throws fear into the politicians.

I don’t know how long it took the politicians to make payment for medicines a part of Medicare, but it took a long time. If the AARP is powerful, why did it take so long.

And if you senior citizens didn’t know it, these programs, says Samuelson, “constitute middle-class welfare.” Ignore the fact that senior citizens paid into both programs during their working years.

Human beings all over the world do crazy things, sometimes even irrational things. Take Africa for instance__

In Nigeria, you had better be very careful about what you say about a government official on Facebook. Man, there ain’t really no freedom of speech. A man ranted about the governor in January on his Facebook page, which has since be removed. For speaking his mind, he was arrested for traumatizing the governor so badly, the gov had to be hospitalized. Read about here. The dude called for Allah to curse the governor and his friends. Hey, man in Africa, you don’t put no curse on nobody cause they take their curses serious.

The BBC website reported on it website that in Malawi the government has proposed a law against farting in public. Hey, man I want that law brought to the shores of the good old US of A. one person was quoted as saying the government criminalizing the “release of intestinal gases…is a joke of democracy.”

How in hell the question of democracy has anything to do with farting is beyond me.

“Sarah Palin’s supporters and critics need to calm down. She’s a celebrity, not a future president”, is the sub-headline of an article in The Christian Science Monitor on February 3, by Walter Rodgers.

In the article, he lets all of you Dear Sarah funatics and you haters, too, that Dear Sarah is good copy, good for TV. She is, he says, “like a good movie that you don’t want to end.”

For me, a Dear Sarah watcher, I have tried without success to stop watching. She is an addiction because you wonder what she will say and do next. Rodgers is right, only I see her as a funny sitcom, and I wait anxiously for the next episode.

Of course she isn’t presidential material. No matter, the other hopefuls will treat her as if she is the front runner for the Republican nomination for 2012.

In the history of presidential elections, she will be a minor footnote.

All I can say is run, Sarah, run.

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The creationists, you know, those folks who claim the science of evolution is false and God made the earth and the creatures thereon, follow the old maxim “if at first you don’t succeed, try and try again.” So, you liberals on the school boards around the country brace yourselves because they’re coming at you with a new tactic. The intelligent design tactic failed when a federal judge pointed out that intelligent design was not science but “religious strategies that evolved from earlier forms of creationism.” Thus failed did the backdoor try at sneaking creationism into the schools.

Their new strategy argues for teaching the evidence against evolution so as to instill in young minds the process of critical inquiry. Never mind that there is no evidence against evolution, despite what some scientist who want to push intelligent design say.

The scientific debate is not about whether evolution happened but about how it happened. The creationists want to debate the facts of evolution so as to show that it is false, not to get at the truth. Creationists have already made up their minds, so how can there be a debate if one party has already rejected one side of the argument.

Anyway, never argue with a Christian or deeply religious person because you can’t win when their tactic is to fall back on God.

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After his speech honoring those in Tucson who were killed and injured and those who acted to subdue the lone gunman, the talking heads and radio mouths praised President Obama’s speech. Even those morons at Fox news got in on the praising.

The part of the speech that I liked best:

“But what we can’t do is use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on one another. As we discuss these issues, let each of us do so with a good dose of humility. Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame, let us use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy, and remind ourselves of all the ways our hopes and dreams are bound together.”

If only the politicians on the left and right would heed his call for civility in the debates that will take place this year and in 2012 during the presidential election.

And some of you bloggers need to tone down your language, too.

PEACE

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During the war in Iraq, we never read any negative reports on the progress of the war. I suppose that in wars, it is the natural reaction of the administration to report only good news—the military is always progressing in its drive to defeat the enemy.

The Obama administration is no different. In the report recently released to the public, it claims progress is being made. However, certain of the President’s words should raise red flags. He said that progress hasn’t “come fast enough,” and the report describes the progress as fragile. The timeline for withdrawing troops next summer is on track.

Some reasons why we should leave as soon as possible: The President of Afghanistan is a crook, and runs a government based on corruption.

The Afghan people do not trust government, any government.

The Taliban and al Qaeda continue to have a safe haven in Pakistan.

Most of all, we can’t do what England and Russia failed to do: make Afghanistan a western-style nation.